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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 28, 2004)
Oregon Daily Emerald Thursday, October 28, 2004 “Go to heaven for the climate, hell for the company. ” Mark Twain | Author ■ In my opinion RYAN NYBURG BUDGET RACK PR image promotion: The bane of journalism Being a journalism major, I am forced to spend a certain amount of time study ing public relations, though it is not my area of focus. (I would like to pretend to be a real journalist, thank you very much.) This subject usually comes up in classes that fulfill some requirement for a wide range of different focuses, such as Mass Media Ethics. (Assignment 1: TVy to say the name of the class without gig gling.) It is in such classes that I am ex posed to the fascinating and profitable world of PR, where what you do is not nearly as important as what you say you do. Now, I don’t mean to diss on all PR folk. Some of them do good work and are ethically minded people. The same with some lawyers. But these people are poor, so they don’t count. There’s no money in being ethical. What really interests me are the more lucrative aspects of the PR industry. This relates to my job in a number of ways. This office receives on average a tree’s worth a week of press releases con cerning various bands, events, showings and such. The cultural detritus doesn’t end there. We also get CDs, videos, books and various crappy promotional material for various crappy things. All of this is the product of people working in PR trying to get me to mention whatever they happen to be selling. A large part of the job of an entertain ment reporter is separating the subject from the PR surrounding it. Every band wants to be the next big thing, but instead of coming up with original music and cre ative ideas, bands often opt for just hav ing their press releases say they are the next big thing. It’s less hard work and more often than not it actually works, at least for a few years. I mention music be cause of all the possible forms of artistic endeavor, it’s the one most concerned with image. Of course all artists are con cerned with their image, but with musi cians it seems to be chronic. Actual paint-and-brush artists (or paint-and hand artists, or human-fecal-matter and-brush artists) will put up a front as a survival tool in a profession where “starving artist” is no mere jocular description. But musicians are really obsessed. Ac tors can become extraordinarily self-pos sessed, but they are also performing the works of other people. Musicians more of ten than not are performing their own compositions in front of an audience. How you look becomes remarkably important. If you have any doubts about this, the next time you go to a rock concert, ask yourself, “Who is wearing the coolest T-shirt in this building?” Was it a member of one of the bands? Bingo. Musicians can’t be blamed for this. This NYBURG, page 10 Retro revival spurs knitting trend Soft Horizons Fibre offers everything from craft workshops to the newest innovations in yarn BY NATASHA CHILINGERIAN SENIOR PULSE REPORTER Rows of jewel-toned balls of yarn — fluffy ones, sparkly ones and silky ones — line the walls of Soft Horizons Fibre. Crafters gather quietly at a table, leafing through knitting books in search of their next projects. Through out the shop sit materials for a spectrum of fiber-based projects such as looming kits, beading kits and even a few Sleeping Beauty-style spinning wheels. Soft Horizons Fibre is a para dise of fiber arts. The shop, lo cated in an antique house at 412 E. 13th Ave., carries a variety of supplies for knitting, crocheting, basketry, spinning, weaving and chair seat creations. Taking cen ter stage at the store are the newest innovations in yarn, in every color and texture; some styles are fringed and glittery and some are soft and furry. Soft Horizons Fibre owner Mona Rummel said the past few years have brought a large knitting comeback, especially with young people. “Little kids, baby boomers and seniors are coming back to the craft,” she said. “But the up swing in knitting is fueled by col lege-age people. It’s the hip thing to do now.” Rummel said the popularity of knitting among the young crowd goes hand in hand with a revival of trends from the 1960s and 1970s. “It’s a retro movement,” she said. “The 60s and 70s are coming back, like with colors like rust and olive green. It’s a rebellion against the electronic age. People want to do something with their hands and have a finished product.” Eugene resident and former Soft Horizons Fibre employee Bet ty Kjeldgaard also said she has no ticed a growing trend of knitting during the past few years. “For so long, knitting was about the little old grannies in rocking chairs,” she said. “When 1 was in college, we knitted argyle socks for our boyfriends and brothers. Now college students are interested again, and it’s wonderful. There are so many neat yarns now.” Soft Horizons Fibre employee Lisa Nicholson said she has no ticed an interest in knitting from University students. She said sev eral residence hall assistants asked her to teach a residence hall knitting group and that students have come in to tell her about campus knitting groups. “A lot of college students come in,” she said. “They love doing the scarves and fingerless gloves.” Soft Horizons Fibre offers classes and workshops, which make the shop a community craft-making spot. First-timers can sign up for Knitting 101, Introduction to Cro chet or Table Loom Weaving. The store also offers one-day work shops (often taught by special guests), and intermediate and ad vanced classes. A regularly-occur ring workshop is the Square of the Month Club, where students learn to knit a different square each month and at the end of the year piece them together into a unique afghan. The store is still accepting students for its fall classes, and those who are interested can stop by the store for a registration form. Rummel said the perfect project for a novice knitter is a scarf. She said while the stitching of a scarf is YARN, page 11 Danielle Hickey | Photo editor F.D. Morgan speaks to saleswoman Kusi Meneloo in Soft Horizons Fibre, at 412 E. 13th Ave., which carries all types of yams and holds knitting workshops. Harrelson film targets "beast' industries The former 'Cheers' cast member visits Eugene to promote documentary, urge students to vote BY NAIASHA CHILINGERIAN SENIOR PULSE REPORTER Actor and activist Woody Harrel son, known for his role as the dimwitted bartender on the TV se ries “Cheers,” will be in Eugene to day to promote his environmental ly conscious documentary “Go Further” and encourage University students to get their ballots in. He will appear with OSPIRG at 1 p.m. on the corner of East 13th Avenue and University Street to promote protecting the national forests and speak one-on-one to passersby about voting. At 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., the Bijou Art Cinemas will present a sneak preview of “Go Further,” where Harrelson will appear for a question and answer session. I had the privilege of interviewing Harrel son recently about his new film, the environment and our current political situation. Emerald: What message does your film get out? Harrelson: I’ve looked at these environmental issues from every which angle, right? I’ve put a lot of money into it, I’ve put a lot of time, and I feel like most of the time the way environmental issues are dealt with is, it’s like putting out fire. You put out this fire here, you put out this fire there — there are a lot of emergency situations, but does that really get to the root of the problem? Because if you stop them from cutting down this forest, they go cut down that forest. So the big problem is the beast — I call it the beast — which is all these giant in dustries like the petroleum, timber, mining, nuclear...just all the indus tries that get giant subsidies, huge tax breaks and rape mother earth on a daily basis. They look at us not as human beings, but as con sumers. So if we focus on where we put our dollar, it has a big im pact. Not that everybody has ac cess to biodiesel fuel, but on the other hand, when you buy your shampoo, you don’t have to neces sarily buy petroleum-based sham poo. The message of the film is that each of us has our own ability Actor Woody Harrelson says to help transform our planet we need to our dollars to earth-destroying industries such as petroleum or timber. Courtesy stop giving to affect whether or not we’re feed ing the beast. Emerald: In your film’s synop sis, it states that you test your abil ity to believe that the personal transformations people can make can transform our planet. After making the film, do you believe this is true? Harrelson: Oh yeah, I don’t doubt that it’s true, but it’s going to have to be a lot of it acting in union with each other. All we can focus on is our own tasks, like not using Windex is a good thing (laughs). It’s a little thing, but it’s a good thing. Everybody uses Windex. Well, 1 think that cleanser’s a thousand times more toxic than anything it could (clean). But yeah, that’s a way of giving money to the beast. It’s not affecting it on a big level, but if a bunch of us did it together, then it would have a powerful effect. If a bunch of us agree on what we’re boycotting, then we have a really powerful tool. HARRELSON, page 6
